FILM SCORE FRIDAY 11/29/02

Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

The big news is that EMI-Capitol will be rereleasing 16 of the James Bond scores on CD next February, including substantial expansions of some of the greatest scores. Here is the schedule of releases:

On Feb. 11, 2003:

DR. NO (same as LP)
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE (same as LP)
ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (expanded edition, 75+ minutes)
DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER (complete score plus alternates, 75+ minutes)
LIVE AND LET DIE (complete score)
FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (same as Rykodisc CD)
OCTOPUSSY (same as Rykodisc CD)
THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS (same as Rykodisc CD)

On Feb. 25, 2003:

GOLDFINGER (LP contents plus the four extra cues from the British LP)
THUNDERBALL (expanded, 75+ minutes)
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE (complete score, 73 minutes)
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (same as LP)
THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (same as LP)
MOONRAKER (same as LP)
A VIEW TO A KILL (same as LP)
GOLDENEYE (same as CD; to be rereleased by Virgin)

Our Imperious Leader, Lukas Kendall, worked on the expanded score CDs and promises that the sound quality is "stunning." The discs will feature the original LP tracks followed by the additional cues, as on the Rykodisc expanded Bond CDs.

No extra masters were available for Dr. No, From Russia With Love or Moonraker, and the discs will NOT include the vocal demos for Goldfinger, Thunderball or You Only Live Twice, all featured on the James Bond 30th Anniversary set, so don't get rid of those discs just yet.

When I first heard about these discs, I actually thought "Now there's a reason to go on living," which probably tells you more about my life than you really needed to know.

Acclaimed director Karel Reisz died Monday in London. Born in Czechoslovakia, he was orphaned at the age of 11 and smuggled into England. After graduating from college, he spent the last two years of World War II serving with the Czech branch of the Royal Air Force. He wrote the book "The Technique of Film Editing" for the British Film Academy in 1953, and spent much of the decade in advertising and working on documentaries, collaborating with director Tony Richardson.

His feature directorial debut, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, was one of the key films of the British cinema's realist movement in the early sixties. He followed it up with a remake of Night Must Fall, reuniting him with Saturday Night star Albert Finney, and Morgan!, an offbeat comedy starring David Warner and Vanessa Redgrave.

The French Lieutenant's Woman was probably his most widely acclaimed film, providing Meryl Streep with her first leading role. Who'll Stop the Rain featured a breakthrough performance by Nick Nolte, and Sweet Dreams had wonderful work from Jessica Lange, Ed Harris and Ann Wedgworth in this too-little-seen Patsy Cline biopic. Unfortunately, his final film was the disastrous Everybody Wins, which pretty much only Pauline Kael liked.

Since then, he concentrated on directing plays, and contributed to a series of filmed Samuel Beckett plays for the BBC. He is survived by his wife of 40 years, actress Betsy Blair, as well as three sons and a stepdaughter.

SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING - John Dankworth
NIGHT MUST FALL - Ron Grainer
MORGAN! - John Dankworth
ISADORA - Maurice Jarre
THE GAMBLER - Jerry Fielding
WHO'LL STOP THE RAIN - Laurence Rosenthal
THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN - Carl Davis
SWEET DREAMS - Charles Gross
EVERYBODY WINS - Mark Isham

At this website, you can find a quiz in which you answer a series of psychological and movie related questions, and it tells you which film composer you are. Recommended by Lukas Kendall!

I took the quiz, answering as honestly as I could, and I was informed "You Are Jerry Goldsmith!" So I took the quiz again, trying to make my answers as diametrically opposed as my original answers as I could, and was told again that I am Goldsmith. Is there something fishy about the quiz, or is it so powerful and perceptive that it could easily see through my lies to the true Goldsmith within?

Superb Records will release Cliff Martinez' score for Steven Soderbergh's controversial remake of SOLARIS on December 10th.

Adaptation - Carter Burwell - Astralwerks
The Emperor's Club - James Newton Howard - Varese Sarabande
Evelyn - Stephen Endelman - Decca
Star Trek: Nemesis - Jerry Goldsmith - Varese Sarabande

December 10
About Schmidt - Rolfe Kent - New Line
Catch Me If You Can - John Williams - Dreamworks
The Hours - Philip Glass - Nonesuch
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - Howard Shore - Warner Bros.
Pinocchio - Nicola Piovani - Virgin
Solaris - Cliff Martinez - Superb
December 17
8 Women - Krishna Levy - Rhino
Gangs of New York - Howard Shore - Interscope
February 11
Diamonds Are Forever - John Barry - EMI/Capitol
Live and Let Die - George Martin - EMI/Capitol
On Her Majesty's Secret Service - John Barry - EMI/Capitol
February 25
Goldfinger - John Barry - EMI/Capitol
Thunderball - John Barry - EMI/Captol
You Only Live Twice - John Barry - EMI/Capitol
Date Unknown
Amerika - Basil Poledouris - Prometheus
The Big Sky - Dimitri Tiomkin - Screen Archives/BYU
The Busy Body/The Spirit is Willing - Vic Mizzy - Percepto
Fear No Evil - Frank LaLoggia - Percepto
Gods and Generals - Randy Edelman, John Frizzell - Sony Classical
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - Jerry Goldsmith, et al - Film Score Monthly
Miracle on 34th Street - Bruce Broughton - Intrada Special Collection
The Package - James Newton Howard - Prometheus CD Club
The Seventh Sin - Miklos Rozsa - Film Score Monthly
The Swarm - Jerry Goldsmith - Prometheus CD Club

Adam Sandler's 8 Crazy Nights - Ray Ellis, Marc Ellis, Teddy Castellucci - Song CD on Sony
Extreme Ops - Normand Corbeil, Stanislas Syrewicz
Personal Velocity - Michael Rohatyn
Rabbit Proof Fence - Peter Gabriel - Score CD "LongWalk Home" on Realworld
Solaris - Cliff Martinez - Soundtrack CD due Dec. 10th on Superb
They - Elia Cmiral
Treasure Planet - James Newton Howard - Score CD on Disney

DIE ANOTHER DAY - David Arnold

"As the usual naked shadows dance over the credits, current Bond Pierce Brosnan is beaten by North Koreans to the tune of Madonna's eerie title song, then emerges bearded and bedraggled above a subtitle that reveals the passage of 14 months. It's just new enough to keep the film fresh, like the skittish beats composer David Arnold brings to the familiar music."

Keith Phipps, The Onion

"The botch leads to a Hovercraft chase, followed by 14 months of Bond bondage, torture and beard growth that, bizarrely, unfolds to the techno thump of Madonna's cheerless title song and under the usual opening-credit nudie cuties."

Manhola Dargis, Los Angeles Times

"After the so-so Madonna title song comes what must be the oddest on-screen note ever to appear in a Bond film: '14 months later.'"

Marc Caro, Chicago Tribune

"Madonna's vocal on the techno-whoosh title track has a metallic jitter: For a change, the singer sounds expressively inexpressive, with an eerie lack of pity."

David Edelstein, Slate.com

"One glaring exception is Madonna, who delivers a characteristically wooden cameo appearance as a fencing instructor. Uncomfortably laced into a dowdy leather corset, she's supposed to give "Die Another Day" an S&M frisson. But she flops, as does the theme she apparently phoned in to be played over the film's opening sequence."

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

"Madonna, who co-wrote and sings the banal title song, does an unbilled cameo at the start of the fencing club scene. (At least she'll be in one hit in 2002.) Jump-framing of the introductions to certain scenes amounts to annoying affectation that will date the film in the long run, and sound mix at times allows the score and the loud effects to battle rather than complement each other."

Todd McCarthy, Variety

THE EMPEROR'S CLUB - James Newton Howard

"Most elements, from Lajos Koltai's lensing to James Newton Howard's score, are pro, but uninspired."

Robert Koehler, Variety

Kind and harsh words on film scores from the writings of Pauline Kael:

GET OUT YOUR HANDKERCHIEFS

The music is by Mozart, by [Georges] Delerue (writing in the spirit of Mozart), and by Schubert, and this has an additional modulating, controlling effect. The style is almost chaste.

(from When the Lights Go Down, published by Henry Holt & Co.)

[Director Sidney Furie] hammers out the heavy stuff, such as the hokey-powerful opening scene, under the titles, with Holiday being hauled into jail and tied in a strait-jacket while Michel Legrand's hyperactive crime-suspense music cues us in to the overwrought genre.

(from Reeling, published by Warner Books)

And the musical score, arranged by Dick Hyman, keeps twitting you. It starts, under the titles, with Dean Martin singing "That's Amore," and it reaches a juicy peak with the voices of Renata Tebaldi and Carlo Bergonzi in La Boheme. Hyman mixes musical emotion and a teasing parody of musical emotion, and you can't separate them, even when the parody is very broad.

(from Hooked, published by E.P. Dutton)

[Director Fred] Schepisi and his fellow-Australians -- the cinematographer Ian Baker and the composer Bruce Smeaton -- have worked together on all his pictures, and they give Plenty a lustrous, sensuous texture.

(from Hooked, published by E.P. Dutton)

And the score, by Alex North, ages the material, gives it a terrible kind of pompous emotionalism.

(from State of the Art, published by Bookthrift Co.)

The score is entertaining, with records that range from Richard Strauss to Little Richard, and background music by Maurice Jarre, in which the gamelan bell sounds are never far away.

(from Taking It All In, published by Henry Holt & Co.)

On our website, Cary Wong reviewed Michel Legrand's recently closed Broadway musical Amour.

FROM: " J. Borelli" <Bjmj2000@aol.com>

At age 80, this is an ambitious task for Legrand, and a production I am eagerly awaiting.

I, too, await his next project. However, age 80 is not an impediment to work on a Broadway musical. George Abbott mounted a production of Damn Yankees when he was 104 years old!!! In Mr. Legrand's case he can produce & write many musicals before his eightieth birthday which should be in late February 2012. Almost a full 10 years away!!!

FROM: "Darren MacDonald" <mayor_mccheese55@hotmail.com>

SUBJECT: Scary Poll

Scott, you forgot about The Night Walker by Vic Mizzy (if it indeed was you who created this poll). This is a great hidden treasure that I hope more people uncover.

Re: Rejected Score Poll

Since we all know that the majority of Beyondness Of Things is The Horse Whisperer, I would much rather hear/have Barry's complete Golden Child score, which Eddie Murphy apparently had thrown out for not being funky enough (which is a bit like Ridley Scott being refused Barry for Gladiator because the studio wanted a "name" composer!? I don't know if that's true, but it wouldn't surprise me. Anyone who's heard the B-Side of the Ann Wilson single must surely be very curious about it. What is particularly maddening is that you can hear little fragments of Barry's stuff still in the film, although they are very few and far between.

On the other hand, some scores actually deserve to be rejected, but not only survive in the final film but live long enough to see their films restored. I recently attended a screening at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of a restored, 70mm print of Ryan's Daughter, and it looked magnificent. The soundtrack was six-track stereo and was crystal clear, allowing the listener to hear every nuance and orchestration of Maurice Jarre's score.

Unfortunately, the score is awful, one of the worst I've ever heard. The movie, besides being superbly photographed, really isn't very good, but the score especially is a travesty, destroying nearly every scene it's in. What were they thinking?

FROM: Tor Harbin <choyt19@yahoo.com>

SUBJECT: I realize this is late--

But in your "Ghosts of Film Scores Past" article, you forgot "The Spirit is Willing". Personally, I love the tracks available on "Vic Mizzy: Suites and Themes" and I look forward to the CD (yep, at last, it's coming out this winter with "The Busy Body").

SUBJECT: History of Ghost Music

In 1989, Meg Tilly starrred in an interesting film from Richard Adams' book The Girl in the Swing. The film was LAMBASTED. While Carl Davis' score worked well, Meg Tilly was ridiculed for a horrific German accent that was mostly mumbled (unless she was screaming). The cinematography was praised, but the direction was described as emotionless. Meg Tilly got naked, but the sex scenes were described as non-erotic. This is definitely a film that should be mentioned though. Just for the point one reviewer made: "The film sometimes plays like a James Ivory production with a Ken Russell influence."

SUBJECT: Williams best main title missing from poll--

I had to speak-out on behalf of one of John Williams best main titles (*and* scores) which, surprisingly, is missing from the latest poll -- namely, FAR AND AWAY. This mournful cue is one of the composer's most soul-stirring, and his use of Irish music (in particular the Uileann pipes) predates BRAVEHART by three years (and TITANIC by five). Few of Williams' main titles as powerfully transport the listener to a particular time and place as does this one. How does the main title for THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST merit inclusion over FAR AND AWAY?

On the other hand, I suspect that Williams fans are divided into two groups -- those who think his Far and Away score is one of his greatest, and those who think it's one of his most forgettable. I fall into the latter category. Sorry.

However, I've heard a few cues from Catch Me If You Can and it's wonderful, his freshest work in an incredibly long time.

FROM: Steve Halfyard <Steve.Halfyard@uce.ac.uk>

SUBJECT: John Williams poll

Did you put Raiders of the Lost Arc in as a trick question? It barely has a main title: the main title sequence has a tricksy, fragmented cue over shots of an unidentified explorer making his way through the jungle with various natives, the music suggesting that he may actually be one of the bad guys - we don't know at this point that it's Indiana Jones because we don't know who Indiana Jones is! OK, from the point of view of interesting film music, the way it creates this uncertainty about who Indiana is is very clever - but as a great main title? Hmm. The Indiana Jones theme comes much later, and possibly people are confusing the main title and the end credits.

Pedantically yours
Steve Halfyard

FROM: "Kirk Henderson" <kirksworks@attbi.com>

SUBJECT: Devils and their worshippers

1962 - Burn Witch Burn (aka: Night of the Eagle) - William Alwyn

Film about demonology and witchcraft. Very similar to Curse of the Demon. No music available on LP or CD.

FROM: Preston Jones <pjones@fulpat.com>

SUBJECT: The DEVIL is in the Details
 
Re: ALL THAT MONEY CAN BUY/THE DEVIL AND DANIEL WEBSTER:

I'll have to check the exact title and label number information when I get home tonight, but there's a Bernard Herrmann anthology CD, (if memory serves, the one conducted by Elmer Bernstein), which records for the first time the Devil's Dance to "Pop Goes the Weasel" for electronically sped-up fiddle which is not part of the standard Suite.

SUBJECT: Stephen King Scores: A couple of points

I too am fond of making lists - did you know it is a symptom of psychotic leanings? Hurrah!
 
A couple of points you might add to your Stephen King list:
 
Children of the Corn (Jonathan Elias): A suite of 16:45 (including 8 cues) is available on CD on "Best of Stephen King Vol.1" released by Cinerama, an Edel label. The code is CIN-2200-4. The suite is taken from the original soundtrack, but be warned, some of the suites on this album are recreations.
 
Stand by Me (Jack Nitzsche): The DVD has a score-only soundtrack, but it's hardly worth it. Nitzsche's total contribution amounts to 4:56 of music, mostly synthesized versions of the title song.
 
Graveyard Shift: The "Best of Stephen King Vol.1" CD I mentioned earlier contains John Beal's trailer music for Graveyard Shift (??!!) for the real completist, but none of the actual score.

The Langoliers - there is about 5 minutes of score on the FILMUSIC OF VLADIMIR HORUNZHY promo CD

Children of the Corn 666 - Terry Michael Huud has made a promo CD of the score

SUBJECT: ERRATA ON YOUR STEPHEN KING LIST

1998 - SOMETIMES THEY COME BACK - FOR MORE
 
BRIAN LANGSBARD -- NOT BARRY

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